Kill. Crush. Destroy

Almost no sleep last night. Fragments of it, here and there, but that's it. I want a word or two with whoever designed our apartment. Apartments in the other house are much cooler, since they can get a cross breeze going.

So today I hate everyone in Sweden, where it's supposedly 22 degrees. Well, not everyone. But most of them. It's going up to 35 here today, and the humidity is brutal.

I almost had a meltdown yesterday, around 6:30. I made the best decision ever and went to the airconditioned awesomeness that is the reading room. Bliss. So today I'm going right after class.

Tonight editor John Joseph Adams arrives, and will hold a lecture tomorrow. Very appropriate, since this week is focused on the business end of things. How to find an agent, how to write a query letter, etc. Very interesting stuff, and since I haven't submitted a single thing, ever, and have done no research on markets, ever, it's vital info to me if I am going to get stuff out later this year.

Now, class. First, quote.

Meta: It seemed funny that Angelina thought black lace and a frog was a good sex-me-up look.

Frustration

Overheard by two guys in the apartment last night:

Alright. Fuck you, story.

Write or don't write

On the way to the classroom this morning, Guitar and I (Guitar being one of the guys I share an apartment with) discussed whether it might be a good idea to have a pre-meltdown meltdown.

We're both fairly certain we will have some sort of episode over the next six weeks, when we're suffering from sleep deprivation, writer's block and struggling with feelings of inadequacy. So we figured we could do a preemptive strike and just have a meltdown today, before anyone has even seen our texts. Just stand up in the middle of class, scream "I hate you all for the things you will say about my stories! You're all horrible, horrible people, and you don't understand me as an artist!" and then storm out.

We chickened out though.

Today was the first round of response. Two texts. The level of response was about the same as in CWA, the creative writing class in English I took in Sweden, which felt good. The difference was that we got printouts of the texts last night and got to go through them thoroughly before the response session. We give the manuscripts back with written notes and corrections, and also hand over a few pages of written response on each text. A single text, depending on length, will take two hours and up to give response on properly. Most days we have two texts. On Thursdays we'll have three. I doubt I will be a happy, well-rested camper on Friday.

And we learned the Odyssey certainty principle: At any one moment, you're either writing or you're not writing. Words to live by.

I also learned that subs from Nadeau's will be good friends. Yes, good, satisfying friends. Today my friend was stuffed with pastrami and sautéed mushrooms *insert appropriate Homer drooling sounds here*